Winston Churchill? Leo C. Rosten? Walter Winchell? Herman J. Mankiewicz? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Winston Churchill had an unhappy experience negotiating with a politician who held a very high opinion of himself. Afterward Churchill reportedly concocted the perfect remark for deflating the pretensions of an egomaniac: There, but for the grace of God, goes God. …
Monthly Archives: July 2014
There But For the Grace of God, Go I
John Bradford? George Whitfield? John Newton? Sherlock Holmes? Philip Neri? Dwight Moody? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A deeply religious individual once saw a man being led to the gallows and said: There but for the grace of God, go I. In modern times, this proverbial phrase is used to express empathetic compassion and a sense of good …
How Can They Tell?
Dorothy Parker? Wilson Mizner? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Calvin Coolidge was the 30th President of the United States, and his highly reserved character in social settings led to the nickname “Silent Cal”. A few years after his death in 1933 two similar anecdotes began to circulate about the spoken reaction to the news of …
Nobody Will Ever Win the Battle of the Sexes. There’s Too Much Fraternizing with the Enemy
Henry Kissinger? M. Z. Remsburg? James Thurber? Ann Landers? Robert Orben? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a joke about the uneasy relationship between the sexes that has been told for decades: Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy. In the 1970s this statement was attributed …
Every Election Is a Sort of Advance Auction Sale of Stolen Goods
Ambrose Bierce? H. L. Mencken? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a comically acerbic remark about elections that is often attributed to the famous cynic Ambrose Bierce: An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. Several of my friends have told me that these are actually the words of the influential …
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